Tips for toilet training older/SEN child

[poppetandmog]

Please no judgement regarding his age. My son is 9 and due to medical reasons, he has always been incontinent and wears pulls up. However circumstances have changed and he now has a stoma, as of last year, and his consultant thinks he may now be able to be toilet trained (wees only obviously as stoma takes care of the rest).

We have been getting him to sit on the toilet every time we change his pull up and he will eventually do a wee but can often take a long time and it’s usually a drama. He has autism/pda but is verbal, although never tells us when he needs to go. We are not 100% sure if there is any long term damage due to previous medical issue but we can only try.

Any tips for toilet training an older child would be much appreciated - especially a child with PDA who does not particularly want to use the toilet. Thanks.

Rather than just sitting DS on the toilet when you change his pull up, could you try taking him at regular intervals? Gradually increasing the intervals as you have success.

Would he prefer standing up?

Thank you. We have tried this but he gets very distressed and it nearly always results in a tantrum. Without sharing too much personal info, he is adopted and had some early life trauma which has made him very fearful.

What about weeing in the bath/shower or outside? Would a paediatric commode or bottle be easier for DS?

There is an adoption board on MN, you might want to cross post there if some of the issues are related to adoption as well as SEN.